They want to take away our coffee machine! First they took our predecessors' sofa, and now this. This is outrageous. Waaaaiiiit… maybe I should start at the beginning. Maybe I should start by telling you who “we” are.

The final two years of Gymnasium in the classic, soon to have been replaced, Bavarian school system is the Kollegstufe. That's like sixth form, for all you English readers. “We” are the Kollegstufe at my school, and, some time in the previous semester, we were granted the luxury of being allowed to use a disused classroom for, on paper, studying, after having complained about not fitting into the corridors for years. Since then, we have turned it into quite a pleasant sitting room which has even managed to remain, for me at least, the best place in the building for actually studying, if only because we got hold of the most comfortable chairs far and wide.

In the region, it is traditional to have a gigantic party after the Abitur exams. An expensive party. So, as Kollegstufe, we organize legendary (for-profit) parties and whatever else we can think of that gets us money. Ergo, we have a budget. A budget that one could put to good use, one that could be used to finance a coffee machine. Best idea ever. What we bought is a Senseo-brand coffee pod machine—a system that works well and produces good coffee that costs less than 9 cents Eurocents, that is per cup, assuming you buy your pods from ALDI.

Naturally, there are quite a few students now that use the machine quite a lot, and drink quite a lot of coffee. It's great, we love it, and are probably addicted. There's always a great atmosphere in that room. Not surprisingly, there is a group of “regulars” that seem to always have a cup, or at least pod, of coffee on themselves. Interestingly, this group consists mostly of art students. And myself of course. Students of physics (sleepless geek zombies?), French (goes well with café) and, well, German, are also good candidates for coffee drinking. But—enough of that.

Scotland, or Alba, as increasingly few of its inhabitants call it, is a fascinating country, for political and cultural reasons and, most importantly, because it sports a beautiful, unique, and largely rather sparsely populated countryside. It is also a place I have wanted to visit for some years—I would have gone last year, if I hadn't ended up in the USA. This year, however, I went there. And loved it.

The organization that got me to the Highlands is called Fahrten-Ferne-Abenteuer (FFA), which roughly translates to journeys-distance-adventures, but sounds a lot more elegant. They're in the business of providing teenagers with exciting camps and adventurous trips to other countries, all in the manner of the scouting movement. I wasn't one of these teenagers, I was one of the people leading and coaching them.

After spending a number of days in London, Edinburgh, and our coach, getting to know each other and the equipment (for the most part, that means “tents”), the three groups we had created selected their routes for the hike everyone had been waiting for. Each group was to start off at a different place on the Isle of Skye Friday afternoon, and meet up in Portree Tuesday morning. My group, seven young lads, between 16 and 18 years old, chose the longest and certainly most scenic route, a beautiful trip that many of the younger participants would probably have had great difficulty with.

A trip planned for over a year which, due to lots of cars breaking down, could only last five days, this holiday in the heart of the southern Alps was thoroughly enjoyable. We, six youngsters, stayed in a cottage, property of one of our families, above the Val Calanca in the canton of Grigioni (Graubünden), in Italian-speaking Switzerland. There were mountains. There was an abundance of blue sky. There were woods. And there were goats.

As you almost certainly know, blood is a very important part of the human body. It transports all kinds of stuff—oxygen, nutrients, waste products, hormones, diseases. All sorts. As you can see, blood is essential. You probably also know that anyone with, say, a chainsaw and a bit of bad luck can lose more than they would like. What you may not be aware of is the fact that the majority of the population actually requires a blood transfusion at least once at some point during their lifetime. And that's a lot of blood.

So, where does all that blood come from ? With all the scientific advances of the last few millennia, we still aren't able to create synthetic blood with a load of chemicals, and I doubt we will be any time soon, since human blood contains a lot of different living cells that would need to be properly grown. It just isn't that easy. So, obviously, all the blood given to those that need it has to be donated by healthy adults. Strong, healthy adults like you and me. That is why donating blood is important. That is why you should donate blood. Your donations could save lives.

The idea of donating blood scares a lot of people. Maybe you just don't like blood. Maybe you heard of some distant relative passing out after donating blood. Maybe, the last time they collected a blood sample for examination, your doctor's assistant failed to hit your vein five times before getting the stuff. Whatever your concerns may be, there really isn't anything to worry about. Almost all blood donations run smoothly. If you're a healthy, grown-up human being, you will almost certainly be able to cope with the blood loss. he amount of blood donated is 500ml; the average adult contains more than five litres of blood, meaning you'd typically lose less than 10% of your blood. Not that big a deal. The important thing to remember is that the people doing it, taking your blood, taking care of you, know what they're doing. The person sticking the needle into your vein will have done that many times before, there will be trained medics all over. You will be taken care of.

When you plan to donate blood, there are, of course, certain thing you need to pay attention to. You need time. Afterwards, you'll have to relax as much as possible. You need water. Make sure you drink a lot beforehand, and afterwards. Depending on how much you usually drink, add a litre or maybe two of non-alcoholic beverages and you'll be fine. Obviously, you should be well healthy, and you shouldn't be hungry either. As for who is allowed to donate, you have to be at least 18 years of age (there is an upper limit as well), and there has to be a certain gap between donations. In Germany, men may donate blood six times per year, women up to a maximum of four times. In the UK, you can donate about three times a year, I believe.

When I went to donate some of my blood not two weeks ago, I went to a local primary school, where the Bavarian Red Cross Blood Donation Service (BRK Blutspendedienst) was set up for the afternoon. In larger cities, there tend to be permanently open blood donation facilities, but I don't exactly live in a large city. So, I went in, showed my ID, and got a long list of yes/no questions to answer. Are you feeling healthy ?, Have you ever contracted Malaria ?, Do you have HIV ?, Are you pregnant ?—that kind of thing. When I had all of them answered, I had a doctor look over all of that, ask me a few questions, and explain what was going to happen, after which I went to the next desk, where the formalities were finalized, and got to lie down next to all the other donors. Everything was very well organized. Quick chat with a friendly medic, got a needle in my arm, waited ten minutes, done. I didn't even have to look at my blood, or anybody's blood, in fact. Half a litre of blood less pumping through my body, I was given a drink, told to stay put for a while, and then go outside, to the barbecue, and relax some more.

That's what you really need your time for. The formalities at the beginning can take up some time, sure, but you really shouldn't skip the relaxation afterwards. You almost certainly will feel a bit weak. I was told not to stand up for long periods of time. I, like most people, coped perfectly fine, but some people don't, maybe because they're having a bad day, or maybe because their organism simply is fragile. It's always best to stay on site for a bit, because, if something were to happen, you'd be helped. Where I was, everybody got a number stuck to their arm with which it would have been possible to easily find the donated blood in case you need it yourself, all of a sudden. Even if there were some problem, that wouldn't be a problem: everybody on site is a trained medic, there are always doctors there.

As I hope you can see, there really isn't anything to worry about. And remember, your donations could save lives. Ideally, you should donate blood as often as possible, make a commitment of increasing others' chances of survival. If you would like to share your experiences, please do. Below is a list of web sites that you might want to visit. If you know of an equivalent in your country, let me know and I'll add it to the list.

Germany

United Kingdom

FOSDEM, the Free and Open Source Software Developers' European Meeting, is probably the largest and most important community-hosted, community-centric free software event in Europe. FOSDEM 09 will take place on February 7/8 2009 in Brussels, Belgium. I'm going to be there.

If you read this blog, and are attending the conference as well, I'd probably like to meet you. So please, surprise me with a comment, trackback, email, line on IRC or something like that

The earth says hello ! You twinkle above us, we twinkle below.

Hundreds of small bangs, firecrackers, agglomerated to a feast. Sound, light, darkness, bang, crack, thrill. Drunken neighbours trying to blow each other up, and looking for a fight. Flashes of light, twinkling up.

Retreat into a house, a long and good meal. Silly games and jokes. Fun.

Return to the night, the moon is slowly disappearing. Last planning before the spectacle.

12 o'clock, BANG ! Half an hour of lights in the sky, fireworks, rejoicing at the new year. Neighbours gathered around to watch, toasts and congratulations all over.

The crowd retreats, we begin to clear up the mess. Disappearing inside, jolly hours together, awake.

It starts to snow.

Happy new year.

Last Friday, October 31 2008, I turned, on paper, into an adult. The most immediate result was, of course, that I'm apparently a lot more able to drive a car (at least I'm allowed to, alone). I also appear to be a lot more responsible with distilled beverages, and I'm suddenly able to take care of my own money. Banks like paperwork, and they like money, so, of cour"se, I had to give a few autographs to a few banks, as expected. Of course, I've also driven a car parent-less (to a LAN party with some friends), but I haven't as much as seen, let alone bought any strong liquor.

Birthdays are interesting social constructions in themselves, be it 18 or not. Usually, my birthday happens to be in the school holidays, but this year, they're the week after All Saint's Day. That was quite an experience, with most of the 20-student physics class congratulating at the same time, girls being shocked at having forgotten, etc. As usual, some people felt like giving away presents, like this one, from my lovely parents:

The EeePc 901 is a nice little machine. The keyboard may be a lot smaller than usual, but I can still type quite well on it; the size and weight are excellent, the only thing that wasn't that great was the pre-installed xandros operating system, which I have replaced with ubuntu-eee, which still works well but gives me more control.

If you spend a while in the USA as a European, you will inevitably notice some differences in culture et cetera. This shall be little more than a silly list of things I, as a German and European, noticed while on vacation in the states.

Plenty of great, great cities are to be found all over the surface of the sphere of rock we call earth. In every region of this planet man has constructed large settlements, and each and every one of these is unique. Every land, every city, has its very own, very unique character. Every city is different.

So, I was in Paris, one of Europe's largest and finest cities, last week. While it was technically a school trip, representing the school, the amount of completely free time we had made it more of a Paris holiday with a bunch of mates, with academic interludes. Paris is indeed a beautiful city which, to me, didn't really seam foreign: It's a post-industrial Western-European metropolis like Munich, Berlin, Brussels, London and others too, and exhibits the characteristic Euro-city flair splendidly.

But, mec, what was you doing à Paris anyway ?

Well, mon ami, what brought us there was a programme called classes musées internationales. The concept is that lycée-aged students from around Europe work together on some scientific subject, in Paris, speaking French, thus improving their knowledge of science and their French. For us, this didn't quite work out: we were scheduled in such a way that we were in the Cité des sciences with a group from Regensburg, Bavaria (same language) and one from the Aosta Valley (incompatible schedule requirements ?), which meant each group worked for itself. Pity, really — we would have all enjoyed working in small groups with Hungarian students.

Alors, t'as fais quoi ces jours-là ?

A quick round-up of what I did:

Monday: We arrived at Charles-de-Gaulle airport with Air France and métroed into the centre to the Hôtel Printania on the boulevard du Temple. That hotel is a not-too-expensive, "very French", no frills hotel in the city centre that served us well. Afterwards, we had a short look at the historical centre, entre-autres at the Hôtel de Ville, where there was still a group of pro-Tibet demonstrators left over from the Olympic flame run earlier, and, of course, the «Paris defend les droits de l'homme partout dans le monde» I'd heard about in the morning radio was up.

Tuesday - Thursday: All in all, these days were structured equally: breakfast in the morning, after which we went to the Cité by métro. There, we presented our school to the other groups on Tuesday (I was the first student to speak... scary) and, after that, attended workshops and talks centred around the environment (climate, energies, water, etc.). Sometime in the afternoon, we were told when breakfast was the next day. Some of the things we (that is, the subset of the group I tended to hang out with) saw: le Centre Pompidou (brilliant), le Louvre (didn't like that kind of art much personally), the Obelisk, the Arc de Triomphe (two of them, actually), the Défense, the Eiffel tower, the métro, many crêperies and many baguette sandwich shops. Other things we did include drink a lot of French white wine and (non-French) vodka.

Friday: To keep it short (FAIL): We held a presentation about the subjects we'd been working on the past days in front of the other groups. While our Tuesday presentation was probably the worst (at least it was nice and short), on Friday we integrated the audience with questions, sported variety (a narrated illustrated play on drinking water, a scripted and played discussion on nuclear energy and a semi-improvised talk on consequences of global warming (that was fun to present)) and some loust jokes. After eating at one of the many cheap restaurants, we headed off to the airport and caught an Air France Fokker 100 to Munich.

Some more photographs may be found on Flickr.